Randy's 180G Reef-Photo Journal

[tgunn]

I find the ammonia kit for salifert a little difficult to read as well; 0 is kinda cloudy so I always wonder if it's really 0 or higher. I did the test on some RO water and use that as a basis for what 0 looks like..

By the looks of it if your nitrites are going up you're probably seeing a bit of a cycle. Once the nitrate kit comes I'm sure you'll start to see the nitrates slowly climb up a bit and the nitrites go up. Mine went through a small cycle like this as well. Eventually everything went to 0 and stayed there..

The turbos should make short work of cleaning up the algae. I've ones the size of a quarter or smaller and they're doing a great job of cleaning up the rocks and now the glass...

Tyler

 

[rdmpe]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6339226#post6339226 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by tgunn
I find the ammonia kit for salifert a little difficult to read as well; 0 is kinda cloudy so I always wonder if it's really 0 or higher. I did the test on some RO water and use that as a basis for what 0 looks like....

I like that idea. I'm going to do two tests, one with RO and the other with tank water and sit them side by side for a comparison.

I'm tempted to go and buy a cheap nitrate kit just to get an idea of where it's at... I guess it doesn't really matter except that I'd do a water change if it were really really high. So far I have not done any significant water change other than the result of wet skimming.

The Mexian Turbo Snails I bought are pretty huge IMO. I'd say they are golf ball size easy. My overflow is just 1/2" glass, no slots. But has pretty good flow going over it. They just crawl right over it and back, no problem. At least... I hope they'll crawl back. They may not want to crawl back against the flow of water sheeting over the edge. I may have to move them by hand. They can't get into my sump drain, so no issues there...

 

[rdmpe]

Cyano outbreak?

Cyano outbreak?

Well, I think I may have some Cyano showing up in the refugium.

I'd like to think it's coraline but somehow I doubt it. Can anyone ID this? These are the best pictures I could get so far. It is beginning to show up on some pvc and some rock rubble. The refugium flow is pretty low. Here are some pictures...

 

[rock455]

could be brown algae -- or diatoms -- if it is cyano you'll know in a matter of anoter 4 to 8 hours -- it will turn slimey and will begin to get bubbles in it -- That may be no big deal other than a sign of mid cycle --

How are the mangrove pods doing?

 

[rdmpe]

Thanks Rock, I think there may be some diatoms or other brownish stuff growing there, but there is also some stuff that is very red colored. Hard to get it in the pictures, but that is the stuff I was hoping is coraline. But maybe it's way too early for coraline to start developing down there, I'm not sure...

I am having what I think is a mild cycle. I finally went out and bought an Aquarium Pharmaceuticals NitrAte test kit. I just tested it and it came out about 10-12 ppm. That doesn't seem all that terrible to me. What do you think?

The mangroves dropped their leaves. Probably unhappy about me transplanting them out of their container and into main refugium. I tried to do it as carefully as possible. Hopefully they'll come back. They don't look like they are dying.

The macro is really starting to take off lately too. Lots of new growth on the Caulerpa and the Chaeto both.

So any opinion on the reddish stuff?

 

[tgunn]

The brown stuff looks like what I've got. The turbos are tearing through it.. I think it's an algae or diatom bloom of some kind from what has been said on my thread. Nothing to be worried about.

 

[rdmpe]

But the RED Tyler, what about the RED ? Tell me it is Coraline But don't lie to me...

Well, I haven't posted any pics of my sump/fuge and area under the stand, so here are some pics of it. The rubbermaid tubs are doing pretty well. I just would rather be able to see through them as with glass or acrylic.

But I'm too cheap for now. Maybe I'll upgrade eventually.

This is the best shot I can get of the whole thing

Far Left showing the Dart and closed loop plumbing on the left and the electrical outlets, unused dosing pump, and the Tarpon sump return pump in the bottom right.

Center Left showing the sump return pump with the salinity monitor and the PH monitor hanging off the plumbing... PH monitor needs a new probe I think. It's way wrong so I shut it off...

Center Right showing the sump return plumbing coming off the pump in the far left and across the back. Then there is the water feed to the refugium controlled by that gate valve. And my light fixture for the fuge. It is a clip on light, but I also have it supported by a zip tie up to a hook so that if the clip comes loose, the fixture cannot fall into the water. I don't trust the light being clipped on that slippery round pvc there. Down across the bottom you can see the 1.5" feed line that goes to the sump return pump. The empty gallon water jug is sitting on it. I need to build a little shelf that sits over the pipe so that the jug doesn't rest on it.

Far Right showing the sump tub with the skimmer in it. There are two 1.5" drains coming from the tank. One has a gate valve on it and that is the main drain. It is "tuned" so that the standpipe in the tank stays fully submerged. So there is absolutely no sound from the standpipe sucking air, or from the water entering the sump. No bubbles either. I love this setup. In the event of a clog of the main drain, the water will rise over the top of the secondary drain and it can handle 100" of the flow, so there isn't any real risk of flood with this system. So far it has been working flawlessly. You can also see the two 1" return lines snaking around the back before heading up through the bulkheads. Thank goodness for spaflex. This would have been a huge PITA with hard pvc. I actually used very few pieces of hard pvc. Almost everything is spaflex under the tank.

 

[rdmpe]

There's more! (yawn)

Another shot of the fuge with the light over it

Inside the fuge you see the Caulerpa in the center, some chaeto over in the upper left, and four mangroves. See my fancy screen to keep big things from getting into the sump area? I was paranoid about blockage of this drain since that would cause the fuge to flood. So I made that screen with a ton of surface area. It would be very difficult for that to get blocked enough to flood the fuge. The pipes are two 1.5" pipes screwed into the two 1.5" bulkheads that attache the tubs to each other.

A shot inside the sump. The skimmer is sitting up on a box I made of eggcrate. I don't have any baffles or bubble traps in the sump. Haven't needed them so far. It us passing about 1000 gph or so with no noise or bubble problems. I just have things like the skimmer output pointed in the opposite direction from the pump intake. The skimmer actually doesn't seem to pass enough bubbles into the sump for me to notice them. So far this has worked out well.

Here is the top of the skimmer and the plumbing around it. This was very tight to work in. It all pretty much fits together like a 3D puzzle.

 

[Stile2]

Actually it looks nice and roomy!!

Keith

 

[rdmpe]

LOL I wish it felt that way when I have to take that skimmer out of the sump. It's a major operation...

 

[rock455]

Very cool -- one thing you might check is the heat that is on the mangroves -- the light is very close to the fuge -- I had it mounted more than 1 1/2 feet above the fuge -- may help

 

[tgunn]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6342954#post6342954 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by rdmpe
But the RED Tyler, what about the RED ? Tell me it is Coraline But don't lie to me...

Lol, I had red on some rocks I got; I think it was coralline; until most of it bleached out. Doh!

Not sure if the red you're seeing is really coralline though. If you scrape at it and it comes off really easy it's probably not coralline; if it's hard and crusty, it might be.

Tyler

 

[rdmpe]

Thanks, I'll have to let it develop a little more and then see if it's crusty or not.

Rock - I checked how much heat I could feel from the light - it's really not hot at all. The fixture has a 23 watt coil bulb in it. It seems to be nice and cool. The largest mangrove kept it's leaves, and the smaller ones still have the immature leaves at the top that may continue to develop. So hopefully they will all make it OK.

The green slimer coral pieces did not make the transition. They pretty much all bleached out Probably to be expected though, there was a lot of trauma with no lights, the tank cycling, etc.

 

[tgunn]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6343690#post6343690 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by rdmpe
Thanks, I'll have to let it develop a little more and then see if it's crusty or not.

Rock - I checked how much heat I could feel from the light - it's really not hot at all. The fixture has a 23 watt coil bulb in it. It seems to be nice and cool. The largest mangrove kept it's leaves, and the smaller ones still have the immature leaves at the top that may continue to develop. So hopefully they will all make it OK.

Yeah, I was excited when I got the first dots of something on my overflow; until it grew out and turned brown. :lol:

Randy, do you mist the mangroves down every now and then? I thought I read a while back that you need to mist them with RO/DI almost daily to keep the leaves from plugging up with salt? I could be mistaken though.

Tyler

 

[rjwilson37]

Very nice rdmpe, how is the noise level on that setup, does it run pretty quiet?

 

[rjwilson37]

Oh... I have a turbo snail in my sump/refuge which helps cleanup some of the algae that it gets here and there. My sump/refuge is very established after 2 years, so it stays pretty clean with the exception to coraline algae growth.

 

[rdmpe]

Tyler - I had not heard about misting the mangroves. They do look pretty salty. I guess that makes sense. In the wild, the get plenty of rain which would rinse them off regularly. We have tons of mangrove around here. I wonder if I'm allowed to bring some shoots home...

As for the reddish stuff growing on my pvc in the fuge - I rubbed it with my finger and it felt rough and did not wipe off. So I think it is likely to be coraline.


RJ - The sump setup is very very quiet since the drains dont' pull any air down. The Dart and Tarpon together are also surprisingly quiet IMO. The loudest thing in the whole setup is the skimmer. When the doors are closed, it is all very quiet. We can watch TV with no problems from the tank.

 

[tgunn]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6344297#post6344297 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by rdmpe
Tyler - I had not heard about misting the mangroves. They do look pretty salty. I guess that makes sense. In the wild, the get plenty of rain which would rinse them off regularly. We have tons of mangrove around here. I wonder if I'm allowed to bring some shoots home...

As for the reddish stuff growing on my pvc in the fuge - I rubbed it with my finger and it felt rough and did not wipe off. So I think it is likely to be coraline.


RJ - The sump setup is very very quiet since the drains dont' pull any air down. The Dart and Tarpon together are also surprisingly quiet IMO. The loudest thing in the whole setup is the skimmer. When the doors are closed, it is all very quiet. We can watch TV with no problems from the tank.

Randy,

Yeah, I had read about that elsewhere on here where someone had a separate tank planted with a bunch of mangroves. Might want to give it a try and see...

Hey neat, that'd sure be a nice and easy way to get some more if you are allowed to collect them!

Well, if it looks like coralline, and it feels like coralline, then perhaps it is. Heh. Once it starts to take off you'll really notice your calcium levels drop fast. Mine is depleting at about 20mg/L per day... I'm sure the rapid growth of my acro and the new growth I'm seeing on the galaxia are helping too.

Hey, how much skimmate are you producing right now out of curiosity?

Thanks,
Tyler

 

[rdmpe]

Not much skimmate really. I started off skimming very very wet. So my skimmate at that time was hardly even colored, mostly just cloudy from pulling out fines from the southdown.

I've since been tweaking it back a little in an effort to get the skimmate to be a little less water and a little more waste. So now it is a little bit brown or tan, but not much skimmate being produced. But then my bioload is very small right now. I basically have a small to medium sized cleanup crew, a couple of serpent type stars, and a clownfish.

I keep hearing stories about skimmers going crazy and putting dozens of gallons of water on the floor, so I'm a little paranoid still. So for now I sit a gallon jug inside a 5 gallon bucket. AND I put a water alarm in the 5 gallon bucket so that if the bucket starts to fill, a very loud alarm goes off. So far it hasn't happened...

 

[tgunn]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6344736#post6344736 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by rdmpe
Not much skimmate really. I started off skimming very very wet. So my skimmate at that time was hardly even colored, mostly just cloudy from pulling out fines from the southdown.

I've since been tweaking it back a little in an effort to get the skimmate to be a little less water and a little more waste. So now it is a little bit brown or tan, but not much skimmate being produced. But then my bioload is very small right now. I basically have a small to medium sized cleanup crew, a couple of serpent type stars, and a clownfish.

I keep hearing stories about skimmers going crazy and putting dozens of gallons of water on the floor, so I'm a little paranoid still. So for now I sit a gallon jug inside a 5 gallon bucket. AND I put a water alarm in the 5 gallon bucket so that if the bucket starts to fill, a very loud alarm goes off. So far it hasn't happened...

Okay, good to know there's not much being produced yet; it helps me know my skimmer is working properly. I don't get a huge amount of skimmate either. And I run ozone which supposedly reduces the skimmate production a bit too.

Heh, well my skimmer did go crazy a while back... It overflowed the 5 gal salt bucket that collects the waste and continued to dump 14 gallons of water onto the fish room floor. Needless to say I built a shutoff valve the next day for it.... As a further safety I eventually plan on attaching a tube to the air vent that dumps into the sump so that at worse if the shut off fails I won't drain the sump/tank...

I'm glad I siliconed along the baseboards in that room! I've dumped so much water on the floor accidentally it's not even funny!

Tyler